Институт Парламентаризма и Предпринимательства

Basic Course Reader

(Сборник текстов для базового курса по английскому языку)

МИНСК , 2005

UNIT I. FAMILY RELATIONS

UNIT II. EDUCATION

UNIT III. DAILY ROUTINE & LEISURE TIME

UNIT IV. HOLIDAYS & TRAVELLING

UNIT V. MEALS

Bringing Up Children

It is generally accepted that the experiences of the child in his first years largely determine his character and later personality. “Upbringing” is normally used to refer to the treatment and training of the child within the home. This is closely related to the treatment and training of the child in school, which is usually distinguished by the term “education”. In a society such as ours both parents and teachers are responsible for the opportunities provided for the development of the child so that upbringing and education are interdependent. The ideas and practices of child rearing vary from culture to culture.

All parents have to solve the problems of freedom and discipline. The younger the child, the more readily the mother gives in to his demand to avoid disappointing him. She knows that if his energies are not given an outlet, her child’s continuing development may be warped. An example of this is the young child’s need to play with mud and sand and water. A child must be allowed to enjoy all this “messy” but tactile stage of discovery before he is ready to go on to the less physical pleasures of toys and books. Similarly, throughout life, each stage depends on satisfactory completion of the one before. Where one stage of child development has been left out, or not sufficiently experienced, the child may have to go back and capture the experience of it.

The beginnings of discipline are in the nursery. Even the youngest baby is taught by gradual stages to wait for food, to sleep and wake at regular intervals and so on. If the child feels the world around him is a warm and friendly one, he slowly accepts its rhythm and accustoms himself to conforming to its demands.

Every parent watches eagerly the child’s acquisition of each new skill – the first spoken words, the first independent steps, or the beginning of reading and writing. It is often tempting to hurry the child beyond his natural learning rate, but this can set up dangerous feelings of failure. This might happen at any stage. A baby might be forced to use a toilet too early; a young child might be encouraged to learn to read before he knows the meaning of the words he reads. On the other hand, though, if a child is left alone too much, or without any learning opportunities, he loses his natural curiosity and his desire to find out new things.

Learning together is a fruitful source of relationship between children and parents. By playing together, parents learn more about their children and children learn more from their parents. Toys and games which both parents and children can share are an important means of achieving this co-operation.

Parents vary greatly in their degree of strictness or indulgence towards their children. Some may be especially strict in money matters; others are severe over times of coming home at night, punctuality for meals or personal cleanliness.

As regards the development of moral standards in the growing child, consistency is very important. To forbid a thing one day and excuse it the next is no foundation for morality. Also, parents should realize that “example is better than precept”. If they are hypocritical and do not practise what they preach, their children may grow confused and emotionally insecure when they grow old enough to think for themselves.

Changing Family in International Perspective

Far-reaching changes are occurring in family structures and household living arrangements in the developed countries. The pace and timing of change differ from country to country, but the general direction is the same practically everywhere. Families are becoming smaller, and household composition patterns over the past several decades have been away from the traditional nuclear family—husband, wife, and children living in one household— and toward more single-parent households, more persons living alone, and more couples living together out of wedlock. Indeed, the “consensual” union" has become a more visible and accepted family type in several countries. The one-person household has become the fastest growing household type.

In conjunction with the changes in living arrangements, family labour force patterns have also undergone profound changes. Most countries studied have experienced a rapid rise in participation rates of married women, particularly women who formerly would have stayed at home with their young children.

Scandinavian countries have been the pacesetters in the development of many of the nontraditional forms of family living, especially births outside of wedlock and cohabitation outside of legal marriage. Women in these societies also have the highest rates of labour force participation. However, in at least two aspects, the United States is setting the pace: Americans have, by far, the highest divorce rate of any industrial nation, as well as a higher incidence of single-parent households, one of the most economically vulnerable segments of the population. Japan is the most traditional society of those studied, with very low rates of divorce and births out of wedlock and the highest proportion of married-couple households. In fact, Japan is the only country studied in which the share of such households has increased since 1960. But even in Japan, family patterns are changing: sharp drops in fertility have led to much smaller families.

I/We Gather Together

By Thursday, feast day, family day, Thanksgiving Day, Americans who value individualism like no other people, will collect around a million tables all over the country. All these complex cells, these men and women, old and young, with different dreams and disappointments, will join again the group they are part of and apart from: their family.

Families and individuals. The we and the I. Americans always travel between these two ideas. They trip from the great American notion of individualism to the great American vision of family.

Well, there has always been some pavement between a person and a family. We are, after all, raised in families…to be individuals. This double message follows us through life. We are taught about the freedom of the I and the safety of the we, the loneliness of the I and the intrusiveness of the we, the selfishness of the I and the burdens of the we.

In fact, the world rewards the Individual. We think alone, inside our heads. We write music and literature with an enlarged sense of self. We are graded and paid, hired and fired on our own merit. Individualism is both exciting and cruel. Here is where the fittest survives.

The family, on the other hand, works very differently. We don’t have to achieve to be accepted by our families. We just have to be. Our membership is not based on credentials but on birth. A friend loves you for your intelligence, a girl for your charm, but your family’s love is unreasoning: you were born into it and of its flesh and blood.

The family is formed not for the survival of the fittest but for the weakest. It is not an economic unit but an emotional one. This is not the place where people ruthlessly compete with each other but where they work for each other.